Departments at the
International Faculty are committed to provide high quality feedback to
students. In this context, some Departments have adopted the practice of giving
feedback on draft assignment documents sent by students to lecturers ahead of
deadline. This document clarifies certain issues with regards to timing of
requests, replies as well as quality and quantity of feedback given on drafts.
Definition of draft: A draft for a coursework assignment is a
preliminary version of a piece of writing. Preliminary means that the document should
have the form of a plan of what the student intends to include in the final
document. It could be in the form of paragraphs or bullet points (with key
references per paragraph or argument when needed). A draft could not only be a
structured document file (e.g. word etc); an extensive e-mail that asks a lot of clarifying
questions to the lecturer could also be regarded as a draft and will be treated
as such by the lecturer.
Timing: The lecturer/unit leader needs at least five working
days to provide feedback on a draft. The students should also allow enough time
for the lecturers to correct the draft and for themselves to work on the
corrections/suggestions. Therefore, drafts should be sent at least 8 days prior
to submission deadline. A lecturer has the right to refuse to give feedback on
a draft submitted later than that.
Repetition: The lecturers cannot see more than one draft from
the same student for the same piece of coursework.
Feedback on drafts: The feedback on drafts aims to help students
make sure that they are on the right track with respect to their final
submission. Feedback on drafts includes generic comments that give guidelines
to the students as to how they should proceed with the final document. Such
comments may be related, for instance, to rephrasing of the research
hypothesis, rewriting the results section, following the recommended
referencing system format when referencing/citing sources, thinking more about
the limitations of the study, etc.
https://www.jobsrmine.com/blog/threading-the-thin-line-between-feedback-and-criticism
Feedback across Levels and Units: Each Department is flexible to apply this policy across levels and units. Lecturer and students must always agree at the beginning of the semester about submission of drafts. Feedback on drafts may be more desirable at Levels 1 and 2 or in PGT level first assignments, and less desirable to other assignments.
Misconceptions:
- Although there might be comments regarding the language (e.g., pay attention to English, there are mistakes in grammar and syntax) and format (e.g. structure, fonts, pages etc), the point is not to proofread the draft and correct the language or the format. This is the student’s ultimate responsibility.
- Feedback is returned to students within 5 working days after the request but students should not wait for feedback before they can continue working on their assignment.
- It should be stressed that sending a draft and receiving feedback does not guarantee that the final submission will receive a good mark. It all depends on the final submission and other factors (e.g. compliance with feedback on draft, differences between draft and final submission etc.).
In summary, it is essential
for students to realize that feedback for drafts is different from feedback for
final submissions (which is explicitly stated in the feedback handbook). It is
an extra provision that students can use to ensure that they are on the right
path towards their final submission of a piece of coursework.
Drafted by Frosso Kalyva
3 February 2015
PS One might think "it is too much work for the lecturer to look at drafts as well". I can provide a counter argument: "how many students would you think are ready to submit a draft paper 10 days before submission?". In principle, we all agree it is a great provision for students who want to improve. When the numbers start to become "threatening", then we can talk again.
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